By Aarón Torres
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Monday again extended an order blocking Texas from enforcing a new law that gives the state a role in arresting and deporting immigrants.
Alito’s last-minute order, the third time the high court stepped in to pause enforcement of the law known as Senate Bill 4, came around 4 p.m., when a previous order blocking SB 4 was to end.
The one-page order from Alito — who handles emergency petitions out of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi — included no deadline for action, saying only that the delay in enforcing SB 4 had been extended “pending further order” of either Alito or the court.
The law, originally set to take effect March 5, was challenged by the U.S. Justice Department and found to be unconstitutional in February by a federal judge in Austin. Texas appealed, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave Texas permission to enforce SB 4 while it considered the lower-court ruling.
The Biden administration and civil rights groups asked the Supreme Court to halt enforcement of the law until its constitutionality could be determined, leading to a series of orders from Alito, including Monday’s order that put the law under an indefinite pause.
Had the court not acted before 4 p.m. Monday, Texas would have been able to enforce the law, making for some tense moments as the deadline approached, said David Donatti, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.
El Paso County, represented by the ACLU, also sued to overturn SB 4 and asked the Supreme Court to block its enforcement while the case plays out at the 5th Circuit Court.
“To our clients in this case, it emphasized that this is just a very scary moment for Texas communities,” Donatti said. “It goes to the very fundamental question on if the state of Texas can arrest people on the suspicion that they are not lawfully in the United States and put them into this very coercive legal proceeding.”
The Justice Department argues that the law violates the Constitution because it undermines the federal government’s authority over immigration enforcement and foreign policy.
Gov. Greg Abbott and other Texas officials have defended the measure, saying it’s a necessary response to an “invasion” of undocumented migrants crossing into Texas that the Biden administration has failed to stop.
Abbott said the Supreme Court order would not stop the state from taking other action to secure the border, including arresting migrants on state charges such as trespassing, building sections of border wall and using the National Guard “to erect razor wire barriers to repel migrants.”
Last month, U.S. District Judge David Ezra sided with the Biden administration in a ruling that called SB 4 “patently unconstitutional” based on a Supreme Court ruling that struck down a similar Arizona law in 2012.
The Texas Legislature passed SB 4 in November, and Abbott signed it into law in December.
SB 4 created two state crimes for migrants who cross into Texas illegally — illegal entry from a foreign country, a Class B misdemeanor with a jail term of up to six months and a $2,000 fine, and illegal reentry into the state from a foreign country, a Class A misdemeanor with up to one year in jail and a $4,000 fine for repeat offenders.
The penalty for both could escalate to felonies for migrants who previously had been convicted of certain crimes, including a felony or two misdemeanor drug convictions.
The law also allowed state judges to issue deportation orders for migrants who agree to return to the foreign nation from which they entered Texas — presumably Mexico.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
